PARADOX ECHOES FROM THE QUEER VORTEX: GAY SHAME De-Centers the Center

So, where do we go from here? These days, GAY SHAME finds itself in the unusual position of not quite unleashing as much scandal in the wilderness of liberal hypocrisy as you would expect. Our most recent action was more like performing curious exercises of dissent in an echo chamber. Nobody who was introduced to the labyrinthine and involved premise of the action found conflict within the deeper politics, not even among the indicted—the over-paid administration staff of the San Francisco LGBT Center. GAY SHAME's recent action returned the Virus in the System to the site where we were served a royal thumping at the hands of the SFPD in 2003.

GAY SHAME was protesting this bloody history, along with the endless stream of personal and collective stories of transphobia, racism, classism, ableism and ageism administered by the policies of the Center. Whose Center? From gender-segregated bathrooms, expensive meeting rooms, no public space, to the armed and uniformed San Francisco Police officer (no, we are not kidding!) that removes those of us who are a bit too dark or a bit too dirty, our critique is felt by many who have survived the Center.

Many recall the incident where GAY SHAME protested a Center cabaret fundraiser hosted by everyone's favorite closet fascist, Gavin Newsom. GAY SHAME sparked controversy in the gay community, which had embraced the viciously anti-poor Marina District supervisor—hitherto famous for authoring CARE NOT CASH, essentially a civic legislative greenlight for robbing homeless people of their welfare checks—purely on the merits of his alleged dashing visage. While ruling class establishment gays secretly applauded Newsom for giving GAY SHAME a lesson in smear-the-queer at the end of SFPD nightsticks, this horrific night won our group the sympathy of mainstream media and shocked the San Francisco Left. As is consistent with GAY SHAME's recurring political premise of outrage, everyone understood the real villain was the Center, both for bowing to Newsom and for standing by complicit to the police violence in front of their large fancy prefabricated mall-like window edifice.

On the 25th of June, the Thursday before San Francisco huge LGBT Pride and Celebration weekend, close to a hundred cultural fugitives from many different intersections gathered at the brink of this oddly quiescent non-profit vortex, cleverly disguised as the LGBT Center. GAY SHAME discovered startling evidence that the architects of this glistening, vapid pile at 1800 Market Street—sponsored by such luminaries as Lennar, Bechtel and PG&E—is in fact on paper a portal to the 8th Dimension, Gavin Newsom’s homeworld. Secret ruling class blueprints reveal that it was designed specifically for the purpose of sucking out our time, energy, passion, imagination, etc. into the void, with the end goal of moving us all Towards A More Perfect Oblivion. Such nefarious scoundrels as Gavin Newsom and EQCA were also attempting to siphon off the portal’s stolen energy in order to camouflage their public relations smoke-and-mirrors, lobbying and harried assimilationist proselytizing as “activism”—behold as “Si Se Puede” through deft spindoctoring is transformed into Gavin’s invidious “Yes We Can.”

However, right when our tale could not possibly turn bleaker, something completely unexpected emerges to foil their best-laid plans! Through the hubris of such colonial cultural pioneers as Newsom and the mainstream gay marriage movement movers and shakers, the sheer strain of their warped liberties upon the political context of activist history suddenly resulted in fracturing the very time-space continuum!

GAY SHAME called upon radicals from all radical queer topologies and insurgent moments to pounce frolicksome upon this staggering hall of 501(c)3 illusions, rallying everyone to snatch back our pilfered dreams! Although, this time there was no line of hand-selected LGBT community members in police uniform staring down the motley that gathered, threateningly rapping their batons in the palms of their leather riot gloves. There was no unassumingly nebbish former radical-cum-Executive-Director stumbling knock-kneed from behind the Center's wizard-curtain to plaintively offer earnest ersatz concessions to the catcalls of the raucous assembled anti-authoritarians. A fanciful and involved banner, dropped by an undisclosed sleeper-cell of radical queers who were able to scale the heights of Gavin’s feckless fortress, hung from the Center's fourth floor balcony, reading in spiraled colors, “The Center sucks our energy, money, time…,”.

But, what purpose could come randomly assembling near the ring of so heinous an abyss serve? What method might undo the interminable loss queers have endured by these gruesome structures of violence? Here, GAY SHAME, once again to the rescue, had unearthed yet another secret to Empire’s unmaking: the vortex gate SWINGS BOTH WAYS! As Sir Isaac Newton emceed, battles were waged between non-profit executive directors and ghosts of gay liberation for the future of the movement. The sport of explicitly enacting and re-enacting the violence we face from the state thus generating energy via crowd response and captured by a marvelous device—a Polarity Meter. Newton’s deus ex machina riveted the ragtag assortment, who were awestruck with the demonstrated principles of polarity reversal—very plainly, if a vortex can suck, reversing its polarity can induce said vortex to “spit it out!” as it were. This ingenious method perplexed and entertained for a good hour plus. This day was but one of many conversations about the void caused by capitalism and the misappropriation of community resources. Still, the vile question lingers: how else can we get back what has been stolen from us? Raucous polarity match participants also had free reign to come-and-go under the asymmetrical grid of community Center glass with absolutely zero harassment. Many reported having a great time at the action.

But the question is: in the face of such unprecedented cooperation and well-deployed de-escalation tactics, what really counts as a successful intervention against the violence of mainstream LGBT institutions, City Hall and the non-profit industrial complex? How is it possible to hold these things accountable for the violence they unleash on our lives? On the rim of the 40th anniversary of Stonewall it seems the Center, this time, chose to ignore us into oblivion. Obviously wanting to escape any negative press on this holy weekend, the Center staff seemed to not notice the huge 30 foot banner or the bike locks that successfully locked the Center doors OPEN! A tactic that seems much needed for an institution with such an exclusionary history. It also ensured we could not be locked inside against our will.

GAY SHAME is a Virus in the System. We are committed to a queer extravaganza that brings direct action to astounding levels of theatricality. We will not be satisfied with a commercialized gay identity that denies the intrinsic links between queer struggle and challenging power. We seek nothing less than a new queer activism that foregrounds race, class, gender and sexuality, to counter the self-serving “values” of gay consumerism and the increasingly hypocritical left. We are dedicated to fighting the rabid assimilationist monster with a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance. http://www.gayshamesf.org